Like a trio of alluring sirens, perched atop of scattered 90s shoegazing rock and shrouded by a mist of Lush-esque soporific swoons; the London-based – originally formed in Brighton – drone connisseurs Novella tread a fine line between My Bloody Valentine and Curve.
Their debut single wallows in a calculated revisionist past of mournful indie, and could have been recorded at any time in the last twenty odd years. The usual, suspect, scuzzy-frazzled guitars and methodical tom pounded drums signal the intent as a dirge-fueled torraid of washing meloncholy shores up the aloof slacker styled lyrics. ‘The Things You Do’ has a moodier edge, and sounds like the Howling Bells reguritating Sonic Youth; whereas the thematically gloomy ode to “…the new world order and mass suicide” B-side, ‘Oh Brian’, is actually performed with a lighter hazier and lo-fi wry sense of humour that picks over the bones of both Broadcast and Dinosaur Jr – the group dedicate this song to the Brian Jonestown Massacre, apparently.
Approbations and minor plaudits accompany the trio, whose bewitching sound certainly fufils all the criteria, and emits all the right atmospherics: clever in recreating an aura of 90s nostalgia, but thats about it. Unfortunatly this is a, more then, well ploughed furrow to be excavating without adding anything remotely inventive or inspired.
Out Now
[Rating:3]
